I will build my empires on your ruins
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: "What will you do to get what you want?" / "Anything." :: Or in which the diary ends up in Percy's hands instead. For Em.


Written for Hogwarts' Writing Club - Showtime: Dear Theodosia: (dialogue) "I'll do whatever it takes." and the Comic Book Day Event: 'Freedom is life's great lie.'.

Also for Em, with whom I traded Dark Lord!Percy for Stripper!Voldy (no, I wasn't high at the time, just trying to write Voldemort while my radio crooned at me to 'take off all of your clothes'). Love you, hope this is what you wanted!

 _Word count:_ 760

* * *

 **I will build my empire on your ruins**

There is a diary tucked in between Lockhart's books, and Percy didn't put it there. It's black, and empty, but the name on the cover is embossed in gold and Percy knows it.

 _Tom Riddle_ , it says, and Percy knows that name—Riddle got an award at Hogwarts for services rendered to the school, and he was Head Boy. He is all that Percy aspires to be—all that his family doesn't understand him wanting to be—and somehow, some wondrous way, Percy ended up with his diary.

It must be fate; or perhaps a gift.

Perhaps his parents were listening, after all, when Percy told them about his dreams. Perhaps they did care, and found this diary just for him, to help him along.

 _(and the best part? it's not just a diary)_

 _(but hush, that's also the worst part)_

* * *

Tom is brilliant, a true genius. He doesn't only talk to Percy, but he listens and makes him see the world the way it should be, rather than the way it is.

 _They don't understand you_ , Tom confirms on more than one occasion, and for ink on paper, those words do a better job at warming Percy's heart than most everything he's ever heard.

 _They don't know you like I do_ , Tom croons, and Percy finds himself caressing the words, the way Tom's ' _o'_ s loop, just a little, the way he crosses his 't's.

He sleeps with the diary next to his heart, clutched in his arms, and dreams that someone understands him.

* * *

There are holes in his memories; blank spots where Percy can't remember his actions.

 _You were with me_ , Tom tells him, and in his mind's eye, Percy sees him smile, a slow, sensuous thing that makes him shiver.

 _How?_ Percy writes back, eager and afraid but oh so terribly willing.

 _Would you like me to show you?_

Percy doesn't even hesitate to say yes, and this time, when his fingertips brush against paper, his mind travels in time.

Words of ink bleed on the world, on the Hogwarts of a time long passed, and it should be frightening, but it isn't.

Tom is here, and he is both a memory and the world around him, and Percy _understands_.

 _(in another world, Percy never laid hands on the diary)_

 _(in another world, his little sister, Ginny, did, and when she realized what Tom was, she tried to throw him away—it even worked, for a while)_

 _(but this is not that world—and in this one, Percy is too far gone to give up Tom, to give up on sharing that brilliance, on learning from this boy who is everything Percy has dreamt he could be)_

* * *

In another world, Tom leads Ginny in the Chamber to kill her, to steal her life and make it his.

In this one, Percy lets himself be led into the Chamber of Secrets, sibyllic hisses falling from his lips like precious stones, and _yes_ , he thinks, _this is where I was meant to be_.

In this one, Percy is the one who steals Tom's soul and makes it his, because Tom mentioned once that they were linked, and links are always—always—a two way-street.

Somewhere, he feels like he can hear Tom scream—but it doesn't matter. Not anymore.

Not when Tom can never leave him, now.

 _Freedom_ , Percy thinks as he dusts off his shoulders and leaves, _is life's great lie, anyway._

* * *

 _(One day, the diary asks him: 'What will you do to get what you want?'_

 _And Percy chews at his quill for a long, long time. "I'll do whatever it takes," he whispers, and slowly, carefully, inks 'Anything,' on the page._

 _The words fade away instantly, replaced by Tom's answer. 'Good,' he says, 'then you will help me?'_

 _And Percy remembers the twins mocking him, and Ron sneering at him while Ginny never, ever defended him—even Bill, and Charlie, he knows, made fun of him behind his back for being too ambitious, too studious, too_ different _. He remembers feeling like he was meant for more, and a diary—_ Tom _, who has helped him all year be who he wants to be._

' _What do you need me to do?' Percy asks, and it's a trap, it was always going to be a trap—"don't trust something you can't see the brain of," his father's voice echoes in his head, but what choice does he have, but to make a deal with this devil, to bargain for the life he's always wanted?_

 _But it's fine—Percy's good at staying out of traps.)_


End file.
